Explore "The Harlequin Opal, Volume 2" by Fergus Hume on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Weary body, aching brain, Tortured mind, and heavy soul, Fourfold being, one existence! Life with troublous insistence, To ye brings but constant dole, Ceaseless weeping, endless pain; Yet is all this sorrow vain When the waves of slumber roll Over body, over soul. In such slumber should ye list, hence Flies the spirit to attain That far land of dreams and stories, Misty realms of airy glories, Where the body hath no being, Nor the eyes an earthly seeing And the mind makes no resistance To events which overleap Nature's laws, which bind existence; From our sphere the spirit fleeing Dwells but in the realm of sleep.
After that extraordinary interview with Don Hypolito in the prison, Jack ceased to take any interest in earthly matters, and went for a space into shadow-land. He was not dead, but delirious. As a captive balloon is anchored to earth, so Jack's soul had flown into the realms of dream, yet was held to his body by a small amount of life.